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| July 20, 2008 | |||||||||||||||
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 | The Frank Book by Jim Woodring | Reviewed by Amy Harlib | |
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| Publisher: Fantagraphic Books, Seattle, Washington
http://www.fantagraphics.com ISBN: 1560975342 Release date: June 2003 Format: hardcover Pages: Price: $39.95 | |||
| I am very excited to share information about and my opinions of The Frank Book a showcase for the astonishing work of Jim Woodring, an award-winning American cartoonist with animation experience. Here he gets all the adventures of one of his well-known and most-loved fantasy creations gathered together in one large, 351-page, high quality, glossy, coffee-table-sized hardcover book that does justice to the brilliant artwork within. This volume, graced with an introduction by admirer Francis Ford Coppola, collects 37 stories, a significant proportion rendered in full glorious, jewel-like, painterly colors, the rest drawn in black and white, woodcut-like, intricately detailed pen and ink.
Frank, Jim Woodring's character and subject of the book, is an anthropomorphic critter with big, round eyes; huge, exaggerated cheeks; buck teeth; little rounded ears; a purple and white, tuxedo-like body coloration; white Mickey Mouse type gloves; white booties; and a slightly tubby torso with a small, stubby tail. This being looks like a playful animator's doodle, like an odd cross between a beaver and a cat; intentionally conceived as an embodiment of whimsy who stands for all of us. Frank represents an every-person who, with wide-eyed innocence and no goal other than experiencing life, gets put through Woodring's paces in these remarkable sequences and who experiences every emotional dimension and vicissitude of existence. In the book's definitive compilation of material previously scattered in various publications and partially collected in Frank (1996, reprinted in 2000) and Frank, Volume 2 (1997), we get blessed with the entire oeuvre to date and never before gathered all in one place. Deceptively easy to view, (being nearly "silent", without word balloons), Woodring's imagery offers rich, deeply complex, nuances of feeling in dream-like, hallucinogenic visuals filled with quirky humor, pathos, and Zen-like philosophical charm. Frank's escapades thus can be relished by people of all ages, but adults will appreciate the layers of meanings and the slyly satirical warped subtleties of the artist's unique visions. Perusing the volume's contents, the viewer becomes immediately struck by Woodring's incredibly playful imagination. Whether painted in gorgeous, vibrant, subtly shaded colors or drawn in lushly delineated, highly contrasted black and white inked lines, Woodring's invented world in which Frank's adventures take place, comes filled with baroquely curved, ornate, Arabian Nights-like buildings; fecundly blooming trees and plants; and Dr. Seuss-like objects and tools. Frank also shares his environs with oddly shaped fauna and fishes and other beings, some of whom resemble him and still others, such as the cone-shaped chickens and the delightful house cats formed like miniature houses with faces and thick, striped tails. One creature in particular, serving in the role of a sort of nemesis, the vile and repulsive Manhog (sporting a pig's face and tail on a rotund, bristly-haired, naked man's body with human hands and feet but who locomotes on all fours), frequently appears in the tales to confront Frank. Another recurring character, the bright blue, quixotic, power-craving Whim, resembles a spindly stick figure with a devilish tail, a horned head, and a face much like that of a Jack-in-the-Box. These entities' interactions with Frank merely precipitate interesting events, however, and are not the center of the protagonist's existence. When looking at the Frank tales, the overall effect is whimsical and dreamlike, with Woodring's distinctive artistic style filling every panel and every page with vibrant, quivering energy and beautifully balanced, yet dynamic, compositions distinguished by the flow of rounded and curved shapes. The stories, all imbued with their own internally consistent, yet warped, system of images illustrate, in their allegorical and visionary way, everything we experience -- birth, death, holiness, sense of self, change, love, struggle, play, evil, greed, enslavement, freedom, thoughtfulness, travel, loneliness, friendship, kindness, and transcendence. Yet the bizarre, otherworldly settings and characters also paradoxically seem alien; at least they do on the surface, but underneath, they resonate on profound, affecting levels and help us to look at life with a sense of wonder that penetrates the blasé, jaded weariness of our mundane, daily routines. Woodring's creation is the stuff of dreams, penetrating deep into the visceral and the unconscious, touching the realm of pure, playful imagination; the contents sometime defy rational comprehension with their surreal visuals. Nevertheless, they utterly delight and enthrall with their absolute clarity and the astonishing creativity of the artist's conceptions. The Frank Book is frankly amazing and deserves to be savored repeatedly; for like all the best works of art and fantasy, there will always be something fresh to be found there while Frank the character finds a place to be loved in your heart forever. For such endlessly satisfying wonderment, The Frank Book, a beautifully produced, sturdy, hardcover volume will prove well worth its price. Author's Web site: www.jimwoodring.com Author's E-mail: jim@jimwoodring.com | |||
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